With Brexit and the election of D. Trump, tariffs and exchange rates are back at the centre stage of policy debates. This column revisits the assumptions economists make when estimating how tariffs and exchange rates affect exporters’ performance.

A key driver of productivity is ease of resource allocation. This column uses firm-level data for France to show that misallocation has a spatial dimension: resource allocation and the associated effect on productivity are related not only to firms’ characteristics, but also to the environment in which they operate. Denser commuting zones seem to offer a better match between employers and employees, leading to more productive firms.

IMF cuts global growth forecasts following Brexit vote. Paul Krugman has taken a different point of view by arguing there is no reason to worry in the immediate future. This opposition reflects clearly two different opinions on the short-term consequences of uncertainty.

This column reports the nature and the amplitude of economic cycles in the Euro area since 1970, with a focus on the role of financial factors in generating these cycles.

Following the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, modern industrial countries appear to be coming back to a moderate growth trajectory, as was the case for the last three decades.

While European external surpluses are accumulating and domestic demand is slacking, insisting on improving the Union’s external competitiveness, as some in the Commission are presently doing, is paradoxical. For Europe, the paramount risk is not losing its competitiveness. It is not recovering cohesion and growth.

The current turmoil in emerging capital markets is the result of a classical reversal of market sentiment after an excess of optimism. There are good reasons for being cautiously optimistic but uncertainties remain.

International trade plays a key role in technological diffusion. In a recent work, we show how firms can improve their competitiveness and export performance through importing more varieties of high quality or lower cost intermediate goods.

The Lettre du CEPII No. 324 shows that internal devaluation strategies in Latvia and in Ireland produced only limited adjustments at the price of considerable social costs.

In a previous post, the CEPII presented its World Growth Projections to 2050. This article focuses on two themes that were not addressed yet: Education and Female Participation to the Labor Force.